Style bloggers put on S.F. fashion film fest

PREVIEW Style bloggers fashion a film festival that makes connections between the silver screen and the runway

Daniela Province

Published 4:00 am, Sunday, April 1, 2012

Photo: Russell Yip, The Chronicle

Image 1of/2

Caption

Close

Image 1 of 2

Fashion Film Festival founders Adelle McElveen, front, Kimara Mitchell Stokes, right, and Annie Wilson are seen in the projection booth at the Roxie Theater on Monday, March 19, 2012 in San Francisco, Calif.

Fashion Film Festival founders Adelle McElveen, front, Kimara Mitchell Stokes, right, and Annie Wilson are seen in the projection booth at the Roxie Theater on Monday, March 19, 2012 in San Francisco, Calif.

Photo: Russell Yip, The Chronicle

Image 2 of 2

The first San Francisco Fashion Film Festival is coming to the Roxie April 7 and 8.

The first San Francisco Fashion Film Festival is coming to the Roxie April 7 and 8.

Photo: San Francisco Fashion Film Festi

Style bloggers put on S.F. fashion film fest

1 / 2

Back to Gallery

When three style bloggers came together six months ago to put on the first San Francisco Fashion Film Festival, they set out with the goal of showing films outside the mainstream that examine the role of style in the movies.

Adelle McElveen (Fashionista Lab), Kimara Mitchell Stokes (J'adore Couture) and Annie Wilson (Poetic & Chic) knew one another from blogger meet-ups, and when McElveen found herself with free time after leaving Facebook, she proposed a full-scale annual festival as a way to revive Wilson's Style Cinema series, a screening combined with shopping event that happened twice in early 2010.

This time, the Roxie will play host to the festival April 7 and 8 with a mix of feature, independent, and documentary films chosen to both amaze and entertain. Standbys like "Breakfast at Tiffany's" and "Unzipped" are missing, and that's intentional.

"We each had a shortlist of 10 films that we came in with," says Mitchell Stokes. "It's amazing how we found some things that overlapped. We wanted to be cognizant of that, and we also wanted to make sure we were not being 'downers.' We wanted to put in some challenges, but we also wanted to have some stories that were uplifting, and more approachable."

One component that's sure to offer a new look are two packages of shorts, some commissioned by the fashion industry.

"It's sort of a new art form in advertising - you can look at what Chanel's been doing or what Sofia Coppola has done for Dior," Wilson says. "The dialogue between film and fashion is capturing a moment, an essence of a brand."

Creating the festival from scratch was a learning experience in grassroots fundraising and the workings of the film industry. A Kickstarter campaign near the end of last year raised more than $6,000 in less than a month, but the task of securing corporate sponsorship has proven much harder. Mitchell Stokes says, "We're trying to do this with just our knowledge base and our network, and it's definitely a challenge to cold call people and go door-to-door and ask for advertising dollars."

McElveen adds: "Every single thing we've done, we've had to learn as we go."

Their experience has given rise to ideas for future projects, including a quarterly film series and a competition with local fashion students. McElveen hopes to continue to expand the dialogue beyond fashion insiders. "I want to do something people could participate in and not have to be a part of this subculture of fashion. I have a few ideas; one of them I'm working on."

Mitchell Stokes' pick

"The Matrix" I love runway fashion, and as I was watching it again I started seeing runway shows in my mind. So many designers after this movie came out were doing shows based on futurism or clothing as city armor."

Wilson's picks

"Jack Taylor of Beverly Hills" "It's such a phenomenal story of this man who is so passionate and is still working - he's 95 or 96, and he was 90 when he was in the film. He's just so funny, and kind of fell into this job of being a tailor."

"Barbarella" (1968) It's just so funny and so weird, and the colors and textures are amazing. Jane Fonda is so beautiful, and it's this great campy microcosm of an era - the total opposite to the hippies in 1968."

McElveen's pick

"Ziegfeld Girl" "I'm really excited, because coming into this, I hated black and white films. Now I'm a huge fan, and I want to tell other people who are like me, this is actually really cool."